Librarian Avengers

owing to the demands of my own powerful curiosity, I have agreed to a give an exclusive interview to myself. My publicist disagrees with my decision, but I believe I have a strong connection with myself and I think I can be trusted to report my answers fairly.

Q: Hello Erica. I’m glad you agreed to this interview. You have been pretty reticent with the press lately. What’s been going on?

A: There have been major changes in my life this year. I haven’t felt it was appropriate or respectful to write about them here.

Things have settled down a bit recently. I’m no longer engaged, and I’m living in rural Ithaca near some friendly horses and sheep.

Q: Wow. Do you want to talk about what happened?

A: No. Thank you.

Q: I hear you are moving to the Bay Area in the next few months?

A: I’ve been looking at the Bay Area and NYC as possible places to relocate. After visiting last week, I decided to move to San Francisco.

San Francisco is one of the geekiest, friendliest places I’ve ever been. The city is beautiful, I’ve got good friends, there are interesting projects, and I’ll be among my fellow dorks.

I’m really looking forward to learning the city, starting a new job, volunteering at 826 Valencia, and being immersed in the calm, weird, sunny West Coast atmosphere. Come visit. Bring chocolate babka.

Q: Where are you going to work?

A: An excellent question. I’ve interviewed at a few places where I would like to work. I will know more by next week. Stay tuned.

Q: Don’t you like Ithaca?

A: I love Ithaca and I adore my job at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is why I’ve been here for four years.

However, that translates to about 40 years in Internet Time. It’s time for me to start a new project. I might return to Ithaca someday, once I’ve made my fortune. I’d like to live on a big farm with dogs, books, a wood stove, and all my friends.

Q: Ok. That covers the big topics. What else is going on?

A: I’m having the best year of my life. This weekend I swam in a waterfall, watched a turtle lay eggs, drove a sports car really fast, petted dogs, helped a friend find tractor parts, drank local beer, picked flowers, was charged by a deer, and met one of the first US African refugee coordinators who was working in Botswana in 1965.

Q: Well, thanks again for letting me interview you, Erica.

A: I’m welcome. Thank me.

Interview Girl

I’m in the Bay Area this week, interviewing and exploring the city for possible relocation potential.

I rented a convertible yesterday and had a great drive down to Silicon Valley. I haven’t had a chance in a long time to be the blonde-in-the-convertible, and I gotta say, it felt good.

I’ve got sand under my fingernails, the beginnings of a distinctly non-librarian looking tan, and I’ve burned off at least a few sad winters’ worth of Midwestern Ennui in the past two days. In other words, I’m having a good time. Wish you were here.

Dogblog is really good today, by the way.

1. Queen Bees are expensive
2. It’s damned difficult to find a cat-sitter in Ithaca
3. Johnathan Lethem’s You Don’t Love me Yet is, so far, an absolutely perfect book
4. Tom Phillips is an artist who did a really great book painting featuring fictional books with titles stolen from Shakespeare
5. Roccapulco is a salsa club in San Francisco. I’m going next week with my friend Jake
6. The Lunch Meeting is the gold standard for interviews at eBay

Oldschool Metadata

7. You can randomly teleport somewhere in Second Life and end up getting juggled by a large pink elephant
8. Hotels in San Francisco are way cheaper than hotels in NYC. Jobs in San Francisco pay way better than jobs in NYC.
9. All it took for me to get my finances in shape was to get some software with a decent interface
10. The only cure for pregnancy-induced hypertension is childbirth (hi clay!)
11. My friend Josh has taken over things digital at the NYPL
12. Adobe CS3 will steal your soul with its compelling beauty
13. Google Analytics has a new interface that will steal whatever bit of your soul is leftover after Adobe gets done with you
14. Half of you people are still using Internet Explorer. I’m saddened. Please, for the love of all things holy: Use

Maggie and I visited the bees this weekend. She’s five and wants her own hive. No one ever told her that she’s supposed to be afraid.

We cleaned the hive, inspected for mites, and took out some honey frames. Her family watched proudly from a safe distance, and took this picture of Maggie pointing out a drone.

Life is good.

easons to move here:

• Sunday Brunch with friends and mimosas
• Spring in the park
• Grocery delivery
• Street food
• Skiball in bars
• Chill city dogs

ou were born in the year of the Dragon, during the month of the Dragon. You are a Double Dragon. Thus, your life will be like a terrible Allisya Milano film vehicle: badly written and full of kung-fu.

Your birthday today was a symbolic rebirth. The snow falling on the Northeastern states was a baptism. You will awaken tomorrow and find that your apartment has been cleaned, you’ve learned Icelandic, and you can sing Etta James without cracking the final key-change.

A month has passed, Aries, since you re-framed your life. As the weeks go by and your brain reboots, put your trust in the words of Walter.

This is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

Plover and I in our new home

esterday during a convergence of April birthdays and near-birthdays, I attended a large party.

The Large Party was held in honor of Lexie (who has turned a bewitching 30) and somewhat less so, myself who will turn a similar age in a few days.

Attendees were numerous and varied, and ranged from dog to human, and (often) back to dog.

An entire pig was roasted.

The pig, we are told, led a happy life. He went to the best schools, enjoyed daily trotter-massage, and had a healthy skincare regimen.

Lexie’s wife Marguerite shot him between the eyes and hung him from a tree in the backyard.
He was delicious.

Wishing you good friends with sharp knives,
-Erica

’m in a parking lot in Owego, NY (an actual place!) borrowing bandwidth from an anonymous linksys router. Upstate connectivity sucks. There’s a German Shepherd dog asleep in the back seat. Her name is Fiona. I borrowed her for the trip. I just bought this car. One problem solved.

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but a version of Katamari is coming out for the Wii. Hope you aren’t doing anything this summer.

I’m reading Guns Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years. It gives an excellent overview of the evolution and intersection of human cultures. I’m not far into it, but it’s pretty captivating so far, like taking an anthropology course from Oliver Sacks.

Miles to go before I sleep. Woof to everyone.

oday was big and full. I’m tired, so here’s a list for you. Bullet points are less intimidating.

• I crashed our application today by accidentally deploying to Production rather than my localhost. Oops. But then I fixed it and felt all cool with my mad Linux skillz.
• I’m staying out at my friend’s farm, and this morning I woke up to giggling girls downstairs, local organic bacon and fresh bread, fresh carrot/ginger juice, friendly German shepherd dogs, showtunes, and the nicest snowy upstate NY vista you could hope for.
• Within 12 hours, I asked for and got $5000 from my bank for a new car. Frightening.
• I helped my friend’s daughter watch Sesame Street.
• I helped my employer research how to sell animal sounds for Second Life folks. Advice welcome.
• I drove out to Amish country in a veggie oil-burning truck and saw a tractor museum while helping my friends pick up a forklift that they bought on Ebay.
• We got pulled over for speeding, but were let go because the cop liked the veggie oil truck.
• I waved at Amish children playing in the street with a Shetland pony cart.
• I watched the sun set behind as a mile-long V of migrating geese flew overhead.
• My cow-orkers grilled outside at lunch for the first time. Someone brought venison. Fun was had.
• The pond outside my work window froze last night, and dozens of geese spent the day sliding on the ice with huge leathery feet.
• I received a kind text message.
• I set up my new laptop.
• I helped make a timeline for an NSDL grant.
• I patronized a 4-H bake sale and volunteered to do a beekeeping talk.
• I learned that rolling back to a previous version in Subversion is a pain.
• I stopped taking pain meds and the Frankensteinian curved laceration on my right shoulder has proven to be no trouble at all.

Goodnight. More adventures tomorrow as I travel to Pennsylvania to pick up a car and my motorcycle learners permit.

Stay tuned.